I do remember people reading it at the time recoiling at the savagery in the imagery, but I'm hope I can temper this with some explanation.
We have all lost at some point in our lives. The rug has been pulled and we are left the loser. The word 'gutted', in such common usage, seems to describe so well that empty feeling, the foolishness of being out manoeuvred. This gutting feels the worst when you have tried, and failed, especially if you know, but cannot prove, that dirty tricks have been utilised. I spent some miserable months working as admin staff in an investment bank where I was unpleasantly dropped from a great height. Not an unusual experience, I'm sure.
However, this is different, because I don't know the person alluded to in the poem, what her part really was in the destruction of my marriage. I have no idea if she was an innocent, overwhelmed by love for a man who threw himself at her, or a Machiavellian operator, consciously hell bent on extracting a married man from his family, or something in between. I will never know the truth of what happened when my husband met her on the train, but I do know that by time I found out about their affair there was little I could do. Sadly, I tried to save my marriage, to the extent that when I had a phone call from my husband after he had left me and 6 days after he had moved in with her, telling me he'd made a mistake and loved me, I made the much-regretted error of having him back.
The humiliation of losing him, having him back, and losing him again, burnt into me. I had a Christian faith at that time, although it was much shaken, my dear friends carried on praying for me. To my sweet and steady Christian friends, my husband coming back was an answer to prayer. When he left again after my father's terminal diagnosis, I went into a downward spiral that I have yet to steady out of. The fury I felt when I wrote this poem has left me, I'm numb more than anything now.
So this poem is more a scream at God than anything else. My dear, generous-spirited Vicar has tried telling me it's very Old Testament to scream at God, but I think even he is having to admit I might be more difficult to get back into the fold than most. The idea for the poem came from hearing how William Wallace died. I felt physically gutted, and even though I have to acknowledge it couldn't be on the same scale as Wallace, the agony just went on and on, and it is that dragging out of the suffering that so resonated with me. The Decree Nisi wasn't a surprise, but receiving the paperwork was a shocking experience. Literally. I could not stop shaking. DN1 went and bought me some cigarettes from the Farm Shop, and when the staff who knew her well, so knew she didn't smoke, questioned why she wanted them she said, apparently 'Mummy's had a bit of shock, and she's got to drive later so a large whisky is out of the question'
I suppose the post script is whether I feel like this now. Do I regard her as victor and me as loser? No, I don't. I may have lost that war, but I have peace now, quiet peace in my heart. Maybe right didn't change sides, after all.
Victory – the Decree Nisi is pronounced 9.30am 29th July 2008.
I did fight.
Badly.
The enemy outsmarted me,
I fought with muskets, and courage, and hope,
Right on my side, God in my heart.
She had big guns.
I stood upon the ridge.
She stalked in camouflage
At five forty three,
Whilst I slept.
The war was lost
Before I had begun, had I known.
Thus she has the spoils
As victor.
God loves a victor,
Right changes sides.
And I, like Wallace
Am dragged and hung and disembowelled
For all the world, and God, to watch and cheer.
My life staggers on,
Seeping slowly to its very public end.
A naked, gory spectacle
Of degradation and filth,
As befits one who tried to fight the invader
With God on their side.
All that is left is praying for the end.
Redemption.
The last breath gasped as I am quartered,
Limb from limb, body from soul.
She looks and smiles,
Soft skinned in her supremacy.
Cold heart hidden,
Kohled eyes gleam
Beneath my crown.
27/07/2008
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